…It’s politically instigated —SEMA
By Peter Duru
Makurdi— The Makurdi–Lafia highway was, yesterday, taken over by hundreds of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, housed at the Maga IDPs Camp, Mbayongo, on the outskirts of Makurdi, in protest over alleged lack of food and other basic necessities.
The angry IDPs, who barricaded the highway at the junction leading to the camp, held tree branches and sang solidarity songs, chanting: “We are hungry”, “We want to go back home,” among others.
The protest came barely 24 hours after the visit of Nigeria’s First Lady to the state, during which she donated N1 billion for the upkeep of displaced families in Benue.
One of the protesters, who gave her name as Rebecca Awuse, explained that they embarked on the protest to draw the government’s attention to their plight.
She said: “We want to go back home. We are hungry and we are tired of staying in the camp where we are not being taken care of.”
Reacting, the Information Officer of the Benue State Emergency Management Agency (BSEMA), Tema Ager, said the protest was politically instigated.
He said: “The IDPs are not being starved; government is providing food for them. Those IDPs in Yelewata usually abandon their camp and move to the International Market camp in Makurdi because it is a recent camp and people have been trooping in there for food.
“Even when we take food to them in Yelewata, they still come back to the International Market to collect more.
“The major issue that triggered this protest is politics, all because the First Lady visited yesterday and announced the donation of N1 billion. What the First Lady, Mrs Tinubu, announced yesterday cannot happen today, and moreover, the money is for resettlement, not for food.
“Some of them are protesting that they were given money and we have not shared it with them.”
On when last food items were distributed to IDPs in the state, Ager said: “As we speak, food is being distributed to them. The last time food was distributed to the IDPs was in May this year, but currently, food is being distributed to them across the state.”
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